Guild of St. Mark

The Guild of St. Mark is the fellowship of people exploring ordination as priests or deacons. Members are sent by their parishes to be trained in various aspects of their future ministry. The Guild meets five times a year. Meetings take place on 30 January, 9 April, 9 July, 17 September and 5 November 2016 at Christ Church Cathedral, Polokwane.

If you think God is calling you to be ordained as a priest or deacon in the Dicoese of St. Mark the Evangelist, please contact your rector or priest-in-charge, and the chaplain of the Guild of St. Mark, Rev Linda Lubbe., who can give you further information.

You can also download a leaflet here which will give you further information about becoming a Diocesan (full-time) priest or deacon. If you are interested in becoming a self-supporting priest or deacon, you can download a leaflet with some information here.

The Diocese of St Mark the Evangelist covers nearly the same area as the Limpopo Province of South Africa.

Guild of St Mark Learns About Worship

On Saturday 25th January 2014, †Martin led the Guild of St Mark in a workshop on Worship.

The Guild is the Diocesan Fellowship of Vocation for people who believe God may be calling them to the ordained ministry. It's chaplain is Rev Linda Lubbe. Over a period of five years the Guild deals with a cycle of five themes: the theme for 2014 is Leadership and Worship.

Two Questions

During Morning Prayer, †Martin led a Bible Study on Romans 12:1-2. From this text he introduced two questions that can guide those planning a worship service

1) What to we bring to God?

As we look at the life of our church we ask: What do we have to celebrate? Do we need to repent of something? Are there issues that we need to pray about? Are there people in need? Someone may have a testimony to share...

2) What does God want to give to us or do in us?

We read and meditate on the scripture passages set for the day and listen to hear what God is saying. This will give us an idea of where the emphasis should lie in this particular act of worship. God may want to bring a word of encouragement, or to minister healing, or to lead people to forgiveness and reconciliation... There are endless possibilities.

Communication

They went on to look at worship as a network of communication, between God, the worship leading team and the congregation.

This opened up many relationships and showed how worship brings together the whole of our life, individual and shared.

Finally, the Guild spent time putting the theological principles into practice by planning a Sunday Eucharist service for their congregation.